I recorded these two unknown tracks on tape decades ago from a local college radio station, WCBN-FM, in Ann Arbor, Michigan. I’ve saved them this whole time, never figuring out who or when these were originally made. They both consist of well-arranged samples from different sources – old sci-fi movies, Janis Joplin screaming, an old radio or TV ad, opera music, etc… This is the kind of sampling I fell in love with early in my days of discovering non-mainstream music: No cheesy dance or hip hop beats, just pure dada-esque collage that keeps you hooked and wanting to listen to it again and again. If you can identify the artist or provide any information – please do!

This is the sixth and final installment of the series 8-Tracks of 69: Porno 8-tracks. The introduction from the first post bears repeating for latecomers:

The phrase just doesn’t make sense to people when I first say it: Porno 8-track tapes. No, not videos — 8-track tapes, like from the 70’s. Audio only. No, not recordings of porno movie soundtracks. It’s like porno for the blind, or X-rated radio theater: improbable scenarios, occasional sound effects, awkward play-by-play of all the action. Arousing? Stilted? Downright hilarious? You decide.

Naturally, I saved one of my faves for last: From the great voices, to the too-busy artwork, “Fornicating Female Freaks” is one of the high cards from these crazy 8’s. Even the sparse, minimalist touches of post-production and mild foley work show that someone, somewhere, had aspirations for this little gem, at least for a few cocaine-fueled mixdown moments. The cover art’s promise to allow you to “Actually listen to desire filled conversations, naked abandoned actions, hear absolutely everything” is not an empty promise; certainly not as empty as the cover baseless proclamation that you will find a “Free Gift Inside! — A Genuine French Tickler Novelty”. There’s a full synopsis printed in teeny-tiny little type on the cover, but it’s more fun to just reprint the red-ink, all-caps, italicized teaser phrases:

For the truly impatient and A.D.D., I’ve included some choice soundbites. But surely, those soundbites will merely whet your appetite for the full 30 minute meal… and so I say to you, gorge! Stuff your gils with fluff girls and muff thrills! Then relive awkward 8-track porn moments with handy links to all previous posts! Revel in them all… All… of the 8-Tracks of 69!

And here we take a turn for the dark, with Apartment #69. It’s the saga of two ordinary girls seeking to make a simple modelling living, only to find themselves drugged, then injected “accidentally” with a “superdose” of heroin. But why? Because the mafia needs sex slaves! Duh!

Once the plot kicks in, then the sex sounds ensue — plenty of moaning, groaning, and overly-described titillating actions. The only story in this series that relies on power plays to get you off, Apartment #69 succeeds in its plot extremity at the cost of memorable vocal talent. On the other hand, other porno 8-tracks with more extreme character voices tend to distract the listener from the real job at hand. Perhaps forgettable voices get in the way less.

The character voices in this one, while not as ridiculous as Part 3, are quite the pair: a wholesome, perky woman with an overly stereotyped Irishman keep giving me visions of a wayward Florence Henderson blowing the Blarney Stone on a sex rampage (perhaps after her fling with the clown jewels).

The bad Irish accent comes off sounding drunker than I think he intends, not that anyone’s going for dialectic accuracy here. Combine that with the meager cover art and this is actually one of my least favorite of the porno 8-tracks series. But it still provides some good moments:

“Ah Daisy, I’m in love with you…”
“Aw crap, you’re just in love with my ass.”
“What the hell is the difference between you and your ass anyway!”

“I think your multiplication tables are as screwed up as your fingers are!”

Either way, it’s real hard to get turned on by a porn scene where the male imitates Arte Johnson imitating Sigmund Freud. But if you didn’t, too bad: this short skit is the only thing on all 8 tracks of this tape! It’s repeated on each of the four bands, though at slightly skewed times (a fraction of a second off for each track). This makes for surreal channel-skipping if you hit the Track Change button repeatedly… probably my favorite thing about the tape, actually.

The cover art is my least favorite thing about it — not only is it a stock porn shot with no text or liner notes, but it’s the same stock porn shot as the previous 8-track tape in this series.

I’d written that Alejandro Jodorowsky had settled with Allen Klein, clearing the way for theatrical and DVD releases of his films, and now it’s been announced that May 1 is the release date for a boxed set of Jodorowsky’s El Topo, The Holy Mountain, and Fando y Lis. Prints of El Topo and Holy Mountain are currently touring the country. Not as spectacular as the Japanese box, but fantastic news nonetheless.

Turns out Shiina Ringo’s solo career hasn’t ended after all: February 21 brings us Heisei Fuuzoku, featuring mostly orchestral rearrangements of tunes from Kalk Samen Kuri No Kana as well as other Ringo records. My guess is that this is Ringo’s bid for overseas recognition as the album will be available through iTunes UK, and Ringo sings in English on some tracks.

“The name of this recording, Suck and Screw Orgy, by Allen Karminsky. This is an educational recording!”

And so begins this 8-track tape of a southern belle visiting a verile dentist. And it continues into the absurd as the writer reaches — and reaches far — for synonyms to keep from repeating the usual “parts of the body” nouns, and the actions that one conducts with them.

“Oh, excuse me — am I interrupting something?”
“Well, I was just about to begin some oral surgery, nurse, it’s quite a delicate operation…”

NSFW, mainly because of the moaning rather than much of the language, which is not so much prurient as awkward, since any and all lurid actions must be explicitly described. The cover is also NSFW, and seems to be a generic stock photo that was also used on the 8-track “Dr. Kaufman Examines Crystal”, the next part of this series.

The phrase just doesn’t make sense to people when I first say it: Porno 8-track tapes. No, not videos — 8-track tapes, like from the 70’s. Audio only. No, not recordings of porno movie soundtracks. It’s like porno for the blind, or X-rated radio theater: improbable scenarios, occasional sound effects, awkward play-by-play of all the action. Arousing? Stilted? Downright hilarious? You decide.

Like many of the real gems in my audio holdings, I acquired this from Goldmine Records, Columbus Ohio. I need to take a few moments here to briefly canonize Goldmine and especially Goldmine’s owner, Joe (both RIP). Goldmine for me was… well… a goldmine: it was nearby, it was cheap, and good stuff came through regularly. Joe was just right for it. Half rock casualty, half Simpsons comic book guy, Joe was a Zappa-worshipping music lover who ran this store for MEN. And not just all men: the list of people who had been kicked out of the store and banned for life was not short. The infraction could be anything from questioning Zappa’s genius (the signed show poster behind the counter should’ve warned you) or “using the lord’s name in vain” as a hand-written notice near the Zappa poster warned. Joe’s appreciation for Zappa wasn’t just in life — he died the same way as Zappa, too (prostate cancer).

Although I was never big Zappa fan or even for most of Joe’s likes, he took a shining to me. I think he simply understood that even though I appreciated confusing things like inappropriate religious records and other shitty sounds, I liked what I liked, and I liked it hard and by the dozen. And he gave me quantity discounts on those dozens, for which I am so grateful that I’ll spend paragraphs canonizing him on a blog. (Record stores, take note…)

These six 8-tracks, which will be posted in six parts over the next few weeks, were no exception. Joe held these for me at the store and left one of his characteristically gruff messages on my answering machine to get over there. Mouth agape, I inspected these 8-track treasures while he went on about how amazing they were, how rare they were, how he’d never seen anything like them before. I was bracing myself for the worst…

The first and last tapes of this series are my favorites for many reasons, mainly the voice actresses/actors, the 8-track artwork, and also the production quality. The artwork is the first thing to hit you — it’s dense, way too busy for a small 8-track. This is because of that bad habit labels had of just shrinking the 12″ album artwork down for 8-track releases, but get out your magnifying glass because it’s worth the look for liner notes like: (enjoy the inappropriate caps)

The first to stick you in the ear
with what you want to hear!

YOU’LL BE AMAZED listening to this sexciting audio stage recording, it is many times more stimulating than reading a book, each participant in this sensuously exciting story is alive, you hear real MEN and WOMEN actually SPEAKING with EACH OTHER saying the real words real people say, DRAMATIZING the REAL ACTS that real people do. There is no doubt about it, you will enjoy being SEDUCED by these tantilizing-tittillating characters. Get ready for many thrilling nights of listening pleasure, you will be delighted by the drama and stimulating power of this new wave of audio stag recordings.

“Actually speaking to each other”…! Ain’t that a toe-curler? But “dramatizing” is a key word here: this audio porn, meaning that all the action must be verbally described. If you thought fumbling with a difficult bra hook is an awkward moment in bed, try play-by-play narrative about every relevant action, excretion, and orifice.

But… writing about audio porn is like dancing about architecture. Just go listen. The full MP3 transfer is below. Apologies for the lousy sound quality — blame the lousy 8-track tape player I used, after failing to find a better one at five thrift stores. But bad recordings are better than no recordings, right? Send me a better 8-track deck and I’ll send you the resulting improved transfers.

Robert Lee is the brother of martial artist Bruce Lee. Robert released this album, Robert Lee Sings… The Ballad of Bruce Lee, in 1975 in dedication to his older brother, who had died in 1973. Although he does sing all the songs, Robert has a hand in writing only 3 of them, posted here. The song “Parting”, features lyrics written by Bruce Lee.

In an article from a 1974 issue of Black Belt magazine, Robert describes his relationship with the late master of Jeet Kune Do. It’s hard growing up in the shadow of the world’s greatest martial artist.

Although my last name is also Lee, I am not related. In fact I am Korean, not Chinese. I appreciate Bruce Lee as a martial artist/actor, but I’m no expert or huge fanatic. However, as an Asian-American male, I grew up with little or no role models that “looked like me”, except for Bruce Lee. And, sadly, I can’t think of really any other Asian-American figures in pop culture or politics or literature, etc. that I can really look up to in the way that African-Americans might look to Martin Luther King or Muhammad Ali, Caucasian-Americans to Thomas Jefferson or Mark Twain, Latin-Americans to Cesar Chavez, etc…

Maybe it’s unimportant or superficial. I’ve certainly found my own role models of various ethnic and national origins, but I have to admit that I do have respect and affection towards Bruce Lee for being a strong, heroic, leading man, rather than the nerdy, harmless, un-masculine stereotypes that is more often the images Americans see of Asian-American males, or Asian males for that matter.